The proxy update mechanism of the WMN in the prior art makes it possible that when a node in the WMN needs to send a packet to a terminal, it may send the packet to a proxy node of the terminal, namely the Mesh Access Point (MAP) associated with the terminal, and then the proxy node forwards the packet to the destination terminal. Before sending the packet, the Mesh node first searches its own proxy information table, acquires the address of the MAP associated with the terminal, and then sends, according to the routing table, the packet to the MAP associated with the terminal. Thus, the routing table saved in a node of the Mesh network only needs to take the Mesh node as the destination address rather than take the real destination terminal as the destination address, and thus the size of the routing table is reduced significantly. If the terminal Station (STA) switches among different MAPs, it becomes especially important to update proxy information in the Mesh nodes to make sure that the terminal could still receive packets timely and correctly.
According to the technical solution in the prior art, when the terminal STA switches among different MAPs, the process is as follows:
First, STA1 accesses the network through MAP1, STA2 accesses the network through MAP2, and STA1 and STA2 communicates with each other through the Mesh network.
When STA1 switches from MAP1 to MAP3, STA1 establishes association with MAP3. At this time, MAP1 is the original proxy node of terminal STA1, and MAP3 is the current proxy node of STA1.
Then, MAP3 sends a proxy update add message to a proxy information server in the Mesh network, for example, taking Mesh Point Portal (MPP) as the proxy information server, where the proxy update add message carries a Proxy Update Information Element (PU IE), the MAC address of terminal STA1, and the MAC address of STA1's current proxy node MAP3.
Through the proxy update add message, the MPP and nodes in the path from MAP3 to the MPP are instructed to create or update proxy information about STA1.
After receiving the proxy update add message, the MPP node replies a proxy update confirmation message to MAP3, where the proxy update confirmation message carries a Proxy Update Confirmation Information Element (PUC IE).
During research and implementation of the prior art, the inventor of the present invention finds the following problems in the prior art: After terminal STA1 switches, in the Mesh network, only nodes in the path from the current proxy node MAP3 of the terminal to the proxy information server MPP update the proxy information of the terminal timely, and other Mesh nodes that do not update the proxy information of the terminal timely would still send packets, which are intended to be sent to the terminal, to the original proxy node MAP1 of the terminal, resulting in packet loss.